Prophecy after the Babylonian captivity

The last three prophets prophesied after the Babylonish
captivity. God, as we have seen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
brought back a small remnant of His people, who were re-established in
Jerusalem and in the land; but the throne of God was not again set up
there, neither was the royalty of the house of David reinstated in its
original authority. The empire of the Gentile head had been in a
certain sense judged as not having fulfilled its duty to God, who had
given it its authority. But another empire, raised up among the
Gentiles, had taken the place of the first; and, while under the
overruling hand of God (who disposes of the hearts of all) favourable
to the Jews, still held the people of God in subjection to its yoke --
the yoke of those who were not in covenant with God, but still aliens
to His promises. God recognised the power of the empire which He had
established. Israel was therefore dependent on the favour of those who
ruled over them because of their sins, and had to wait upon God to
render them favourable, worshipping Him according to His merciful
appointments, until the Messiah should come, who would be their
Redeemer and Deliverer.

Deprived of almost everything, Israel were not deprived of the
lovingkindness of their God, on which they should have reckoned, and
of which they had received a striking testimony, in the return of the
remnant from the lands in which they had been captive. If all else
were lost, the fear of God and His law in their hearts remained to
them; and godliness might now be exercised in the manner which He had
prescribed (compare Deut. 30).

Encouragements to faithfulness and testimony against
unfaithfulness

The three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, set before us
the encouragements which God gave the people, that they might be
faithful in their new position; and the testimony against their
unfaithfulness, called for by the decay of their piety, and the total
want of reverence for Jehovah into which the people had fallen. The
temple was necessarily the centre of this imperfect and intermediate
state of the people. It was there, if God allowed the re-establishment
of their worship, that the hearts of the people should centre. That
was the outward form in which their piety as a people should be
expressed. It was thus that the return of their heart to God should be
manifested. Whatever deficiencies there might be in the restored
Levitical service, still, it was the house of God, to which was
attached all that could be re-established, and was the centre of its
exercise.

Unbelief and discouragements

But the faith of the Jews was quickly enfeebled, and they ceased to
build. There were difficulties, no doubt. It was not now as in the
days of Solomon, when everything was at the disposal of the king whose
power extended over all the neighbouring countries. But God had shewn
His goodness towards His people by inclining the heart of the king of
Persia to favour them; and Israel should have had confidence in the
kindness of God, and have expected its fruits; but, full of unbelief,
they were speedily discouraged.

God's dealings before sending His prophets

God chastised His people, but He did so at the fitting time. He
employs the means which His sovereign grace so often used in the
history we have been considering. He raises up a prophet, and even
two, to revive their courage and stimulate them to the work. In the
dealings of God, two things aid in deciding the right time for His
intervention, namely, moral considerations and God's arrangement of
events. In this case God had sufficiently chastised His people, to
make manifest His governmental dealings in the relations of grace,
which He now established with them by means of the prophets; and He
had raised up a prince who was disposed -- if the people acted in
faith -- to acknowledge the will of God and the decrees of Cyrus.

Having thus prepared all both morally and providentially (for He
makes everything work together for our good), He sends His prophets to
animate their courage and their faith, so as to lead them to
accomplish that which had always been their duty.

Real difficulty not an obstacle for faith if in the path of God's
will

They should always have leaned directly upon God, and have gone on
with the work, unless hindered by force. [1]

Now, also, they are called to proceed with it, resting on God,
without knowing the king's mind. Their confidence must be in God,
Himself. Moreover, without this, there would have been neither piety
nor faith in their labours. The king's support had been prepared by
God for the moment in which their faith should have been
manifested. In fact, the difficulty did not fail to arise; but, faith
being in exercise, they continued to build in spite of their enemies,
being directed in their reply to these enemies by the wisdom of God,
and the king gives it his sanction. A difficulty may be a real one,
but it is only for the unbelief of hearts that it is an
obstacle, if on the path of God's will; for faith reckons
upon God, and performs that which He wills, and difficulties are as
nothing before Him. Unbelief can always find excuses, and excuses too
that are apparently well founded: they have only this capital defect,
that they leave God out.

Haggai's subject: the temple of God

The subject of Haggai is the temple. God having brought back the
captives, they immediately seek their own ease without seeking to
rebuild the house of Jehovah. Was it then a time to rebuild their own?
There was tranquillity enough for the latter -- it required no faith
-- the world made no opposition. The prophet exhibits the practical
effect of this, the sensible chastisements of God even as to their
temporal interests. And why these chastisements? They neglected God in
neglecting His house. In truth, if they had thought of God, His house
would have been their first object.

The first glory of the house: the effect of the people's fall and
the captivity

The people, moved by the fear of Jehovah, hearkened to the words of
His servant the prophet. But another difficulty stands in the way of
faith; the painful inferiority of all that can be accomplished by the
remnant of His people, when God brings them back from captivity. They
can do nothing in comparison with the former manifestation of His
glory in the midst of His people. The effect of the people's fall and
of the captivity they had suffered is felt in everything. God cannot
identify His glory with an authority different from His own, exercised
over His people (and which must needs be so) as the result of His
righteous judgment, of His government on earth. He may lift them up --
may restore them, because He loves them; but it is no longer the same
thing. He cannot re-establish that direct connection which brings with
it the manifestation of His power and glory. That relationship had
ended in the judgment. The consciousness of this inferiority tends to
weaken faith.

The grace of God in Israel's ruin

The grace of God meets this difficulty by the testimony of the
prophet. It is a very sorrowful thing to see the ruin of that which
God established in blessing, and the weakness and imperfection of that
which is raised upon those ruins, although even this is the fruit of
His precious grace.

The prophet, without troubling himself as to the king's intentions,
encourages the people by turning their thoughts to Jehovah Himself,
and shewing them that, after all, Jehovah reigned, cared for them, and
would have them act in view of what He was for them, and seek His
glory. For, weak as they were, He would thus be in relationship with
them.

[1] This actually happened (see Ezra 4: 24): but it is evident
that, in consequence of the spirit of unbelief working in them, its
effect was to discourage them entirely, so that they made no effort to
recommence their work, saying, "The time is not come that
Jehovah's house should be built." It was only the testimony of
the Spirit by the prophet that aroused them from their moral torpor.

God Himself with His feeble people in His glory to fill the house

But the testimony of God graciously takes into account also, the
natural effects of the mean appearance of that which they could do for
Him, for God thinks of everything that concerns His people. He was as
faithfully their God now as at the best period of their history. The
proof of it was indeed stronger. He was with them. The word that went
forth from His mouth when He brought them up from Egypt He would
maintain. His Spirit should remain among them. They were not to
fear. But, while sustaining the faith of this feeble remnant by His
tender mercy, He goes much farther. If He could not manifest Himself
among them, on account of their fall and of the establishment of
another order of things, the time would come for His own intervention
by His own power. He would shake all things, because the creature
could not sustain the weight of His glory, and would establish this
glory by His power, and would fill His earthly dwelling-place with His
glory.

Not only should the earth be shaken -- this had often happened; but
the enemy who exercised the power of darkness had always led men to
corrupt everything afresh, and to degrade all that God had established
in blessing. But now, the heavens and the earth, the sea -- authority
on high, and all that was organised below, all established order, and
all that floated unorganised in the world -- and all the nations,
should be shaken; and the object of desire to all nations should come;
and the house which they were now rebuilding with so much trouble,
which was so contemptible in comparison with its former glory, should
be filled with glory by the Lord.

The true glory of the house

The expression which I have rendered by "the object of desire
shall come" is very difficult to translate. It appears to me
that, looking at the context, I have given the sense, [1]

and that the Spirit of God designedly expressed Himself in vague
terms, which, when the mind apprehended the true glory of the house,
would embrace the Messiah. The object of the passage is to certify
that the house shall be filled with glory. [2]

Meanwhile outward glory should be granted it. The silver and the
gold were Jehovah's. But the nations, overthrown, oppressed, and
oppressing one another, not knowing where to look for happiness,
strength, and peace, shall find in that One who alone should establish
the glory of Jehovah and bestow true peace -- in a word, shall find in
Christ alone blessing and deliverance; and He shall be the glory of
the house which the poor remnant were building.

The greater latter glory of the house

The latter glory of the house should be even greater than the
former. It is not "the glory of the latter house"; the house
is always considered as the same house. God will fill it with more
glory at the end than at the beginning, and the peace of Jehovah
Himself shall have its seat there. This shall be accomplished in the
last days. He who shall fill it with glory has indeed come; but, even
while making eternal peace for our souls, the world was in such a
state that He was obliged to say to the people, "Think not that I
am come to bring peace, but a sword." Having shaken all nations,
He will, coming in His glory, set peace in the earth. [3]

Holiness and belssing consequent on recognition of God's presence

Two other prophecies close the Book of Haggai, relating, like the
rest of its contents, to the house. The people, who neglected Jehovah,
had become, as it were, profane. That which is holy cannot sanctify
profane things; but an unclean thing defiles that which is holy; for
holiness is exclusive with respect to evil. The presence of evil
destroys holiness by the very fact of its presence, unless the
holiness be of that nature which, by its own existence, excludes all
that is contrary to it -- such as the nature of God. But when God is
admitted and acknowledged, He can bless by the power of His
presence. Thus, from the day that the people even sought to recognise
and to realise that presence among them, blessing proceeded from it.

All things to be shaken: the place of the true Seed of David in
that day

The second prophecy returns to the shaking of all things. In that
day, the governor of Judah, the heir of David, should be as a signet
on the hand of Him by whom all things were shaken. While encouraging
the people at the time of the prophecy -- a time when they so greatly
needed it -- this prophecy, in naming Zerubbabel, has Him in view who,
when God will shake the heavens and the earth, shall be the true seed
of David and the heir of his crown according to God -- the Christ of
God, the Elect from among the people.

The judgment of the nations who will come up against Jerusalem

The judgment mentioned in verse 22 appears to me, not the judgment
of the throne of the beast, but that of the nations who, at that day,
will come up against Jerusalem. All that sets itself up against the
rights of Jehovah established according to His counsels at Jerusalem
(rights that were identified with the house they were building) should
be overthrown. No doubt this is true, in general, of the kingdom of
the beast: but the conditions of its existence are quite
different. God had put Jerusalem under the power of the head of this
empire. The crimes that draw down judgment upon him, are yet more
audacious and intolerable than those of which the nations are guilty.

The object of Haggai's prophecy

In sum, the object of this prophecy is to connect blessing on the
earth with the house; and to shew that, mean as it might be, its
latter glory should be greater than the former. God, in establishing
all in glory according to the counsels of His grace, would introduce
something much more excellent than that which had been committed to
man, and established by his means. This is connected with the shaking
of all things by His mighty hand, and with the establishment of
David's heir as the object of God's love, and the vessel of His power.

The Gentile empire's authority acknowledged as given by God

It will be observed that the Spirit of God, although He is present
to bless His people, to encourage them, and to connect them with God
in the worship that was to be offered Him in His house, yet
acknowledges the authority of the Gentile empire. These prophecies
are dated according to the years of the reign of the Gentile king. It
is His will that the things of God be rendered to God, and the things
of Caesar to him who then held the place of Caesar. It was God who had
placed him there. We shall thus understand the perfect wisdom of the
Lord in His reply (Mark 12: 17), and the way in which the word is its
expression.

Malachi's pronouncement of judgment on the result in Israel of
God's grace

Malachi neither places nor establishes anything as Haggai does, and
Zechariah. He only pronounces judgment upon the result in Israel of
that which God had done in grace, by re-establishing the remnant;
shewing how little the worship, by which He had connected Israel with
Himself, had been maintained in such a manner as to glorify Him.

[1] Diodati's Italian version, which is considered very accurate,
agrees with the English. De Wette renders it, "The precious
things." But it is not what is very generally used for mere
costly things, though the same root. This is Chemdath, that
Chamudoth. The difficulty is that "shall come" is in the
plural. Perhaps this is De Wette's motive for saying
"things," taking Chemdath, as "vahu" comes first,
as a description of the things that come. The Italian has la scelta
verra, the chosen object (the choice one) of the nations shall
come. [2]

If not, and the sense is to be governed by the following verse, it
would refer to the desirable things of the Gentiles, which would
glorify the house; but I prefer what is in the text.

[3] It is remarkable that in Luke, when Christ rides into
Jerusalem, it is said: "Peace in heaven" (Luke 19: 38). For
it is indeed, when Satan is cast down thence after the final war with
the heavenly powers, that blessing upon earth can be really
established. Up to then it has been always corrupted and spoiled by
the power of evil, or spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. Then
that will be for ever over. Satan may come up on earth if permitted,
as an adversary, but his heavenly power as spiritual wickedness is for
ever over. The prince of the power of the air is gone, his place was
found no more in heaven.